By Maroof Asudemade

There are political careers that begin with ambition, others with inheritance, and a few with an opportunity that arrives before the beneficiary is old enough to appreciate its weight. For Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli, the opportunity came in December 1991.

At just 28, the young lawyer became the first elected Executive Chairman of Ibadan North Local Government, one of the new metropolitan councils created following the Federal Military Government’s 1991 restructuring of local government administration. He remained in office until November 1993. Contemporary and retrospective accounts consistently identify him as the pioneer elected chairman of the council.

Though it’s a real story worth telling that a 28-year-old became a local-government chairman, the more intriguing story is what he did after he got there.

In 1992, barely a year into the experiment, Ibadan North was reportedly named Best Local Government of the Year. The distinction is mentioned repeatedly in later accounts of Alli’s political career, including profiles published by reputable news media. That single fact deserves to be rescued from the realm of political biography and returned to the realm of history.

What made Ibadan North the best? What did a young chairman do differently? And how did he administer a newly created metropolitan council containing some of the most important commercial, educational, residential and institutional districts of Ibadan? Those questions are more interesting than the usual catalogue of political offices that followed.

A new council is a huge responsibility, so was Ibadan North, a metropolitan council newly created, housing important educational, economic, cultural and residential districts. To understand Alli’s first executive assignment, one must first understand the Ibadan North he inherited.

The council was not simply an old administrative structure receiving a new chairman. It was part of a new metropolitan local-government arrangement carved out of the former Ibadan Municipal Government. Historical studies place its headquarters at Bodija and describe a territory extending across major parts of the city, including Bodija, Ashi, Orita-Basorun, Agbowo and Sango. A University of Ibadan study using the 1991 provisional census put the population of Ibadan North at approximately 300,939. This was therefore a formidable assignment for a first-time executive chairman.

Ibadan North contained neighbourhoods of very different characters: established residential districts, emerging suburbs, commercial centres, markets, educational institutions and major government establishments. It was urban, populous and politically consequential. The young chairman was therefore not merely being asked to occupy an office. He was going to help to build the machinery of a new local government. And did the young Sarafadeen Alli do a sterling job out of this yeoman’s assignment? Yes, because the successful and thriving council that Ibadan North has become today is a result of the developmental foundation laid by Sarafadeen Alli.

What exactly was a local government expected to do? The answer helps us judge Alli’s administration fairly. Local government in that era had substantial responsibilities in markets, sanitary inspection, slaughterhouses and slabs, local taxation, public conveniences, community facilities and other grassroots services. Some functions, including aspects of health, education, roads, water and town planning, were shared with higher levels of government.

Consequently, it would be historically accurate to attribute every road, school, health facility or water project appearing within Ibadan North between 1991 and 1993 to the credit of the pioneer chairman personally.


How effectively did the new Ibadan North administration perform the functions within its authority, and how successfully did it work with state and federal agencies on shared responsibilities? That is the standard against which Alli’s record should be examined.

Let’s take it one after the other. In health, Sarafadeen Alli embarked on healthcare expansion, establishing Primary Health Care clinics across all the 12 wards of the newly created Ibadan North Local Government. This act brought healthcare closer to the residents.

In grassroots infrastructure and utilities, the young Sarafadeen Alli opened up structural road networks and laid out critical feeder roads across the local government area to link remote sections of the city. He also sponsored and executed the digging of public wells across wards and market squares to solve the challenges of local water scarcity.

On employment, to shore up personnel, combat local unemployment and build the council’s workforce from the scratch, Sarafadeen Alli initiated a massive employment drive, especially for junior staff and primary school teachers. He also ensured that existing staffers got upgraded accordingly.

The then Barrister Sarafadeen Alli embarked on urban management and Bodija Market reforms. He facilitated the orderly relocation of food items traders from the congested Oritamerin area to Bodija Market. He successfully opened new stalls and ensured abandoned stalls were occupied. He resolved a long-standing financial and contractual dispute between a local developer whose name was Chief Tewogbade and his local government as regards the construction of market stalls.

Not done yet, he upgraded infrastructure at Bodija Market with the establishment of a motorable layout access plan, matching modern urban design. He constructed boreholes at the Bodija abattoir and installed an effective drainage system. He put in place a modernised waste management system by hiring sanitary inspectors and establishing a system to clear animal waste daily from livestock control posts.

Sarafadeen Alli exhibited fiscal discipline as he maintained financial stability at the council while ensuring that civil servants, primary school teachers and external contractors and suppliers were paid as and when due.

He had a solid community relations approach. He collaborated with civil and community leaders and he rose to every occasion he was called to intervene in. It’s then not surprising that Sarafadeen Alli was named the Life Grand Patron of the Ibadan North Local Government Community Development  Council in 1992!

The most intriguing piece of evidence for all his sterling achievements as the pioneer executive chairman of Ibadan North Local Government remains the Best Local Government of the Year award, which was quite deservedly, too. Several later publications stated that Ibadan North received the honour in 1992 during Alli’s sterling stewardship.

Sarafadeen Alli’s own present-day account of his first administration identifies three broad areas of reform: local revenue, sanitation and community infrastructure. His more recent declaration statement similarly describes the administration as one that strengthened institutions, improved infrastructure and brought government closer to the people.

These reforms are quite revealing because they point us towards the kinds of governance challenges confronting Ibadan North at the time. Revenue mattered because a local government could not provide services without money. Sanitation mattered because Ibadan’s urban environment was already struggling under rapid growth and inadequate waste-management capacity. Infrastructure mattered because a newly created metropolitan council needed visible evidence of its existence. And institutions mattered because the chairman was not taking over a mature administrative machine. He was helping to establish one.

Bodija Market was arguably the greatest of Alli’s test of administrative acumen. Few places better illustrate the significance of Alli’s assignment than Bodija Market. Established in 1987, Bodija Market became one of the major food markets serving Ibadan and the surrounding region. After the reorganisation of local governments, it fell within the jurisdiction of Ibadan North. University of Ibadan research later documented its complex network of food items traders, millers, butchers, cattle traders and other commercial interests. That meant the market was not merely a place where people bought food. It was, still is, an economic institution.

It generated revenue. It required sanitation. It required regulation. It required attention to traffic, drainage, stalls, traders and public health. And these were precisely the sorts of functions that made local government visible to ordinary citizens. Alli’s administration improved the administration, sanitation and revenue performance of Bodija Market, and the evidence provides one of the clearest explanations for the council’s 1992 recognition.

It’s gratifying to state that at 28, Sarafadeen Alli’s first political office was not a ceremonial apprenticeship. He took up the gauntlet of a master administrator and he gave a spectacular performance that earned Ibadan North Local Government the best local government in his one year in office. At 28, he didn’t inflict a trial-and-error administration on the local council. He came prepared and gave his best.

After his local government administration stint cut short by Abacha’s interruption, Sarafadeen Alli went on to win a senate slot in 1996, a position he wasn’t allowed to occupy. Thereafter, he had occupied other high-profile politically appointed positions that prepared him for the governorship seat he is currently jostling for. Sarafadeen Alli is that governorship candidate with hefty experiences of elected and appointed political offices and the administrative acumen Oyo State needs to reset its statehood, and redirect its path to progress and greatness.